


Why We Smile

by mortalitasi



Series: analogeies [3]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: AB - Freeform, Angst, Blood and Gore, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 20:40:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2442365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe she's finally found a place - a person - she can call home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why We Smile

_ dear you, far into the future  
please remember me as i once was _

_ the vivid me _

_…_

_Hungry._

_Always so, so hungry._

_The girl crouches against the wall of her bare room. No – not girl, she tells herself. Monster. Tool. Hunter. Never girl. Not girl. It’s been years, and she still can’t stop from thinking like that sometimes. The chamber they keep her in is spartan, sparse, a glowing white that hurts her eyes. She spends most of her time in the corner, face turned toward the walls in an attempt to block the light. They leave it on for hours and hours and hours. She loses sense of day and night in here, and maybe they want her to. It always makes going out something like an exodus, a rebirth, and the minute she steps into the building she’s always thinking about how to prepare herself to earn another trip._

_Be good. Eat your food. Follow orders. Don’t question them._

_They let her go, but not to escape. She’s only come close to trying once, before she realized they kept three guards on her at all times. They allowed her a good deal of perimeter in which to do her work and nothing else. They – the ones she hunts – they ask her why she doesn’t try. She doesn’t want to. She doesn’t think she wants to, at least. Why should she? Has she known anything else? The accusations don’t mean much coming from the dead. The dead can’t speak. She wonders what they’d say if they could. What would it feel like to die?_

_Better than the hunger. They’ve learned, over the years, to not let her go without for very long – not after the morning they found her gnawing the skin from her own fingers. The pain is nothing, was nothing, in front of the yawning, aching sensation of the hunger. Anything is nothing. She would tear down the sky if it meant never having to feel this again, and she knows this is how they guarantee her cooperation. She can’t remember much of life outside of the facility, but she hasn’t forgotten how it is to be trusted._

_None of them here trust her. They walk around her, give her a wide berth, as though she’ll set upon them at any minute. The small ones, anyway. The ones that order her have the problem of coming too close. Those are the ones that kick and slap and hit and raise their voices. They’re the ones with the buttons in their sleeves that make the sizzling heat spark from her collar. The first thing she learned about this place was that heat. It doesn’t have much effect on her now – that upsets them, sometimes, frightens them, maybe. Humans are always so sensitive to pain. They’re fragile._

_Must be protected._

_Her fingers curl in her hair. It’s greasy. She wants to shower. She can’t ask. If she does, they’ll delay it. They always do. They always have. Her toes are cold. She doesn’t much care. The clothes they give her are scratchy. Dull. She used to like bright colors. There are snatches of a time before this place, before The Grey. Mom. Kite. Ribbon. Shoes. A shiny pink coat for when the water came down from the sky. If she shuts her eyes and concentrates hard enough she can bring back the sight of the yellow flowers patterned on the pink. The smell of powder. Mom. Mom, Mom._

_She wishes she could shower._

_…_

_The monster is crawling in the mud. Backed up against a dumpster. Rain falling hard._

_She steps closer and he presses himself up against the metal, watching her with frightened eyes – like that, he almost looks human. But he isn’t. He’s a thing, a creature, a grotesquerie shoved into a skin not made to hold in such a miscreation. He burst out of it several times while they exchanged blows. She’s younger. Faster. She has a purpose. She is aware of her own filth. The eyesore squatted in front of her has nothing to his name. Perhaps a few murders. His beaten face is illuminated in the glow of her weapons – red and red and red. She knows that when the fire is flowing from her back and the signs that mark her as a kakuja appear, even the inspectors fear her._

_She is like him. An abomination. Unworthy. But she is trying to fix it._

_Water drips into her eyes. She blinks it away._

_“Why are you doing this?” he asks, coughing. His wounds aren’t healing as fast without his stamina to help. He’s lost the fight. “Why are you helping the doves?”_

_She looks at him, not really knowing what to say. What does an eagle have to say to a mouse?_

_“You’ll never be one of them!” he goes on, yelling so loud that the veins in his temples pulse with rage. Unseemly._

_“I can serve,” she says quietly, though she doesn’t know why. It’s like explaining yourself to a plant. “I can defend. And I have no choice.”_

_He lurches forward on all fours, hands smearing the grime. She frowns as the dirt flecks her boots, but he’s busy shouting. “The minute you outlive your usefulness, they’ll throw you away. You’ll be discarded like trash. No matter how hard you try, you won’t ever be_ human _!”_

_She bends down, grabs something that fell during the altercation, rips it open with both hands. There’s a picture of him inside the plastic section of the wallet. He has his arms around a smiling woman. She shoves it in his face, looks at the surge of emotions it causes, feels the disgust rise to her mouth. She throws it away, and the arms of her kagune rear up behind her, a tide of crimson swelling beneath the patter of the rain. She seizes him by the collar of his sodden shirt, and listens to the pounding, panicked sound his heart makes when she does so._

_There is a crackling sound – kindling curling and bursting aflame. The shell of her kagune hardens, glistens like crystal. He starts to scream._

_“Neither will you,” she hisses, and drives the blade home._

_…_

“Miss Ren… Ren?”

She looks at him like she’s just realized it was her he wanted. “Sorry,” she says shortly. She places the last two cups of coffee on the awaiting tray, and Kaneki can’t help but stare at the scars circling her fingers. Are those – bite marks?

“I’m not used to people calling me by name,” she says in a low voice as she loads the tray up with some sweeteners and a small tub of creamer.

“It’s alright,” Kaneki answers, even if the reply leaves him a bit worried. “I think table five’s ready to order.”

“I’m on it,” she assures him, and Kaneki watches her as she walks away.

Ren is tall – taller than any woman he’s ever seen – and she has a calm sort of air to her that you usually find around people like doctors or surgeons. He doesn’t know whether that’s a good thing or not. She’s never excessive. Doesn’t speak much. In fact, she seems to forget that she _can_ speak half the time. He’s getting better about being able to tell whether she’s in the room or not – his first few days here were an exercise in terror and startled jumping. How can someone that _big_ be so totally silent?

“Subtlety really isn’t your strong point,” says a voice at his left, disturbingly close. He nearly drops the tray in surprise when he sees Touka standing there, arms crossed, looking very unimpressed.

“Touka, I was just… yeah…” The sentence tapers off, totally unconvincing, and he winces.

“If you want her to tell you about it, get to know her first,” she explains while she reaches for a tray herself. The café’s uniform suits her very much. He tries not to think about that. “She’s incredibly tight-lipped, even around us, and she’s been here a few months.”

“I wasn’t –…” Kaneki sighs. There’s no use in trying to excuse himself. “How would I go about doing that, anyway?”

“You’ll find a way. You always do. You’re like a heartworm.”

“…Thanks?”

Touka shrugs and pours a cup of mocha coffee before topping it with a spray of whipped cream. “She likes to read.”

He smiles, if only a little bit. “Thanks,” he repeats, this time sincerely. She scoffs.

“Have fun.” 

 

…

 

_“Sit down and I’ll take your measurements.”_

_She looks around like she expects the masks to come down off the wall and attack her, but settles herself down on the stool and becomes more preoccupied with where to put her ridiculously long legs. She ends up awkwardly balancing them on the stool’s struts, and it reminds him of the videos he’s watched of uncoordinated foals – things that are all leg and no control. She doesn’t look much older than him. A sweet face, he supposes, with pretty eyes. Almond-shaped. Large. Attentive. Very observant._

_Uta is an artist. He’s been trained to find the beauty in things, no matter how obscure, and staring at Ren Hitotose, even he has a hard time finding something genuine about her. She’s mild-mannered and soft-spoken, but out of convenience. She doesn’t try to hide it. She’s jittery, but confident. He knows her reputation, where she came from. What she used to do. That sort of life leaves an imprint on you, and breaking away from it means fighting the pattern. Fighting the instinct._

_Isn’t that what all ghouls are? Most of them, anyway? Instinct. Their saving grace – and their strongest disadvantage._

_She seems uncomfortable around him. He has a hunch why. He digs the measuring tape out of one of his countless pockets and sets his design notebook on the worktable. He’s never had much of a problem getting near other people, a trait Yomo in particular dislikes greatly, and it often slips his mind that that sort of ease is unthinkable for some. The young woman on his stool shies away when he approaches with the outstretched tape, neatly dodging the little loop he’s made with it._

_“What are you doing?” she asks. It’s the first time he hears her speak. Yoshimura had introduced her, and she’d listened to his instructions silently. Her voice is… smaller than Uta imagined it’d be. Not entirely deep, but rather mellow. Calm._

_“Like I said,” he starts, “taking your measurements. You’ve never worn a mask before?”_

_She looks at him, blinking slowly, something he has a feeling he’ll see her do a lot. Her dark hair falls flatteringly around her face. It’s incredibly straight. She must have had a haircut recently. It wouldn’t surprise him. She’s skin and bones, like she just got out of living in the gutter. She might as well have. He wonders what she’ll look like when she fills out._

_“No,” she answers, very delayed. “I’ve not needed to. A body can’t recognize you.”_

_“But the people you worked for aren’t dead,” he says and holds up the tape again._

_Something in her expression sharpens. “Not all of them.”_

_She doesn’t have to add the ‘yet.’ Her eyes say it for her._

_“Well, until they are, I advise you get a mask done. It won’t do for anyone in any ward if word got out that you’re alive,” he continues, and this time she doesn’t avoid him._

_The light brush of her breath flutters on his collarbone as he circles the tape around her neck to get its circumference, side-to-side, then cheek-to-cheek. The width of the eyelids. He looks down to memorize the numbers, and his gaze lingers on her throat. Thin and long, like most of the rest of her. She doesn’t seem to be bothered or shamed by his obvious attention. She just stares back with her wide eyes, motionless. Light reflects in them, and he somehow knows with an overwhelming certainty that it doesn’t reach her in her mind._

_“Why do you keep them like that?” she says, almost inaudible._

_Now it’s his turn to blink. He imagines he must seem strange to her, with his kakugan plainly visible. “Because I want to,” he answers honestly. “I own a shop full of masks. Hiding is my specialty. I help other ghouls do it all day. I like it. But I also like seeing things for what they truly are.”_

_She doesn’t move. “What if what you truly are is something so horrible that it shouldn’t be seen?”_

_“You’d be surprised at what people define as horrible,” he replies and puts the measuring tape away. “The only way to know for sure is to show them.”_

_“I don’t believe you,” she says. He wishes she'd drop it. “That you only want to. There’s another reason why you don’t hide.”_

_Uta turns away, and reaches for his pencil and notebook again. “Because I shouldn’t have to.”_

_…_

 

Kaneki doesn’t really know what to anticipate when he’s sent to Ren’s apartment with a complimentary delivery of Yoshimura’s best coffee – it’s some sort of an anniversary today for her. He didn’t actually ask. He doesn’t feel it’s his place. Touka left an hour ago with Yoriko, something about amusement parks and candy floss. So here he is in her place, box clutched in one hand, ringing the doorbell with the other.

She opens the door almost immediately, and seems surprised to see him there… or as surprised as Ren can look, anyway. She’s wearing a loose-fitting shirt and some sweatpants, and Kaneki has to find another place to look at when he realizes that same shirt is dipping a _little_ too low, to the point where it informs him that there is a constellation of small brown spots beneath the triangle of her clavicle.

“I, ah, ah – ! I was sent by the manager!” he stutters, thrusting the box out in offering, all but shoving it into her front. Ren looks down at it inquisitively, thick brows quirking upward.

“For me…?” she says and lifts her hands, but doesn’t touch it. “What would he like in return?”

The embarrassment mostly vanishes at that.

“What do you mean?” he asks, grip slackening somewhat. “You don’t need to repay people for things freely given.”

This time her eyes widen in earnest. “Then… this is what they call… a gift?”

His stomach drops. Is it possible that –

“…You’ve never gotten a present before?”

“I… suppose I haven’t,” she murmurs. She’s still hesitating to take the box from him. He nudges it toward her. Her hands rise again, and she slides it from his palms so carefully it’s nearly reverent.

Kaneki catches a glimpse of her apartment over her shoulder. It’s so bare and bright, with a futon sprawled out in the middle of the floor and a sparse kitchen. It doesn’t even look lived in. It doesn’t really shock him – but it makes him… sad? He’s always thought Ren was detached. Maybe it’s not so much because she wants to be, but because she doesn’t know _how_ to be anything else. She hardly ever smiles, and drifts from chore to chore like an automaton without complaint. She handles customers alright, though he suspects it’s because she has no idea how to move past formalities or something other than distant politeness.

An abrupt urge to make her feel _welcome and happy_ just – surges through him. She has to know there are good things in the world. Good things worth living for, things that make the ache of loneliness easier to bear, that can be why you get out of bed every day. She needs to have them shown to her.

“Thank you,” she says, fingers tightening around the box, crinkling the wrapping paper. “Thank you…”

The weight on his shoulders disappears, bit by bit. He smiles.

“Don’t mention it.”  

…

 

_She’d only agreed to spend the night after Yoshimura urged her to._

_Uta is very sure that the prospect of crashing at his apartment (while Yoshimura procured Ren one of her own) was about as pleasant as the thought of sticking her hand into an active blender. The comment he made last week seems to have unsettled her. Makes sense, if what Yoshimura has told him about her is even half true. Her best friend lives on the other end of the 20 th Ward, and during a busy week like this, Uta was her only option. A great time to get started on making her like him._

_But against his plans, the evening is a master’s exercise in quiet circumvention. Ren is always conveniently slipping out of a room when Uta is entering it, looking out a window, busy with her glass of water – and so on. She’s not entirely awkward about it, which he supposes he should appreciate, but her total silence is annoying. Uta isn’t an_ obnoxiously _talkative person, so it’s not as though he misses the chatter – except her type of quiet is usually found in places like a graveyard. She doesn’t know how to ask for things, just waits and gets them for herself. She’s definitely tall enough to reach pretty much anything she wants._

_Earlier, he’d tried promising her the bed. It hadn’t really worked. Not that he minds. He’s viewed as polite, so he’d offered—she’ll tell her friend about it, maybe, and it'll sound consistent, but he’s not all that broken up over the fact that he gets to keep his bed tonight._

_She’d turned her eyes on him, expressionless. “I don’t sleep,” she’d said._

_He had frowned at her. “You have to at one point.”_

_“Sometimes,” had been her only reply before she’d gone back to curling up against the wide windowsill and watching the street below._

_He’s beginning to think she wasn’t kidding. Running a store as… unique as HySy allows Uta to keep flexible hours. He often works late into the night – into the morning, at times, if the design is particularly stubborn, and he’s never really met anyone with quite as bad sleeping habits, even among ghouls, who are more active after the sun goes down. He’s used to the apartment being empty, but Ren is still awake, sitting right where she’d been five hours ago, though now in relative dark._

_He takes a seat on the couch opposite the window, holding his coffee mug loosely between his hands._

_“Do you want anything to read, or…?”_

_She looks at him, tilts her head a little to the side. Like a puppy. “I… don’t know how to read very well.”_

_Of course._

_“Ah,” is all he says, pursing his lips. “Would you like some coffee, then?”_

_“I can do it,” she says. Her toes curl where they show under the baggy hems of her pant-legs. Nervous. Somewhat, at least._

_“You’re a guest,” he reminds her softly, and then passes his mug to her._

_“Isn’t this yours?”_

_“I can get another one,” he tells her as she takes it from him. He gets up, makes his way to the counter. “I_ do _live here.”_

_She stares down at it, at the ripples on the dark liquid’s surface. It smells good. She says so._

_“Coffee is special,” Uta admits, and takes a seat after he’s done pouring his second mug. She sips at her own, very gingerly, and then the closest thing to wonderment he’s ever seen on her comes over her face. Ren licks at her lips and presses the back of her fingers to them, like she can’t believe what she’s tasting._

_“This drink is – wonderful,” she says, and her fingers twist around the mug._

_“Was that your first time trying it?” he asks. So she was more of a shut-in than he thought._

_“I was too scared to do anything else at Anteiku,” Ren murmurs, clearly ashamed. “I’ve only ever had water before.”_

_Beginning to trust. Good. She doesn’t seem the type to confess personal experiences openly, and the way she’s keeping her eyes on the mug bashfully serves to strengthen that hypothesis._

_“There’s always an abundance of it here,” he says after he_ finally _figures out the correct order to put the words in. “If you ever need some, stop by.”_

_Ren lifts the mug again, mostly to disguise the tiny smile she’s giving him, and just when it seems like she’s going to let that go unanswered, she says, “I’ll keep that in mind.”_

_Yes, he thinks. Please do._

_…_

“When did you get it done?”

She looks at him over her shoulder, the sloping curves of her profile outlined in the morning light. She gets up before him – it’s rare that he’s awake to see her get out of bed. She’s always gone when he opens his eyes. Ren, he’s learned, works on a very different wavelength, one even he has some difficulty understanding. Patience is needed. He’ll know more about her soon enough.

“A year after Nori found me,” she informs him.

He brushes a knuckle over the scales of one of the koi drawn on her back. The colors of the entire thing look pretty fresh – green, red, yellow, white – all very intricate and considerately-placed. There’s a lotus blossom at the base of her neck, blooming wide, one flower that will never wilt; koi on the sides, fins flared, and a pattern of vines down the middle. It’s big, but it doesn’t feel overbearing. It’s one of the most understated pieces of ink he’s ever seen. Her friend may be an inherently dislikeable girl – but she does good work.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, and it makes her hang her head in embarrassment. She gets like that with compliments.

“I didn’t like what was there before it,” she mutters, shrugging.

She gathers her hair and moves it out of the way, running her fingers through it self-consciously. Ren’s not uncomfortable being in various stages of undress around him (or anyone else) – a fact which he discovered in a way most would call amusing – which is why she has no problem sitting with her back to him in nothing but shorts. She’s lean and conditioned by long years of rigorous exercise, with thigh muscles he’s almost sure can break a man’s neck. He’s no limp-wristed noodle himself, but he _is_ an artist. Heavy-lifting isn’t much his forte, unless it involves tossing someone dangerous halfway across the street headfirst with a kagune.

She’s taken notice about how careful he is around his hands, though the regeneration factor in most ghouls means he doesn’t have much to worry about them even if he does get injured somehow. It’s the principle of the matter, and because of it she assigns herself to doing stuff like popping bottles open or unscrewing jars. Ren is about as socially fluent as a block of chalk, but it’s in her actions that you can see her intentions – she’s surprisingly childlike in some situations, almost idealistic, and remarkably kind after all that’s happened to her. After all she’s done. An interesting anomaly.

“It took almost the entire day,” she says suddenly, turning her face forward. “It healed quickly, so I had to hide it for a while.”

He props himself up on his elbows, swiping errant bits of his mohawk out of his own eyes. He needs to trim that. “It must have hurt.”

She makes an odd half-giggling sound he’s learned to identify as her laughter. “Not as much as the fire.” She looks up at the ceiling, and he tracks the movement of the sinews in her shoulder blades. He’d like to draw her, once. He’s pulled out of his thoughts by her voice. “I should probably take a shower.”

“Stay,” he blurts, and it surprises him. He doesn’t like being surprised. He thinks she’s going to get up until she flops backward, narrowly missing a very nasty cranium-on-chin collision. Lying there with her hair splayed out against the mattress, cheeks flushed, practically smiling, she doesn’t look anything like the person he met three years ago.

“Why do you like me?” she asks as he angles his head down to get a better view of her.

“I’m bad with interviews,” Uta says evasively. He’d rather not have to get into that conversation right now. People always talk so _much_ when it’s about their feelings. “Why do _you_ like _me_?”

“That’s easy,” she immediately replies.

“Oh?”

She turns on her stomach and sits up, so that they’re face-to-face, noses almost brushing.

“You weren’t afraid to look.”  

 

…

 

_Kaneki is temporarily in charge of the counter (and storefront) when the bigger of two men leaving the place goes out of his way to push Ren off-balance. The sinking feeling in his stomach only worsens when she doesn’t retaliate._

_“Aren’t you going to say anything?”_

_“I have nothing to add,” Ren says, still standing respectfully with her hands clasped in front of her._

_“You’d better goddamn hope so,” snaps the second guy, the one on the left with the tall fringe of brown hair. This time he actually bodily shoves her, hard enough for her back to hit the wall with a thud. “Fuck you, government bitch. How do you even sleep at night? Soundly, I bet. Did you like it? Did you like living as a_ traitor _?”_

_The other one frowns. “She’s not worth the trouble, Touya. Let’s just get out of here.”_

_Touya rips his hand from his friend’s grip and marches out the door – he seems to pause, then he turns, and spits on Ren’s face before stalking away. Kaneki all but dives out from behind the counter to get to her, thanking God that the store is conveniently empty. Things slow down around here during the hours near closing time, so more often than not the last half hour or so is when most of the servers and Yoshimura-san can relax. Kaneki, however, feels nothing like relaxed as he comes to a stop in front of Ren, who is lifting a hand to wipe the gob of saliva on her cheek off._

_“Miss Ren! Are you alright?”_

_“Don’t worry,” she says, perfectly placid, as though she wasn’t nearly just assaulted. “They didn’t hurt me.”_

_“No, but it looked like they wanted to,” Kaneki returns while he looks in the direction the two men left in. “What was their problem?”_

_“I deserved it,” she assures him. “That and more.”_

_“That’s not true!” he exclaims, stepping back when she draws herself up and pushes away from the wall. “You’re a good person, Miss Ren. You tried – are trying – to change. Anyone who doesn’t see that is foolish.”_

_She rests a palm on top of his head, patting him like a mother does an overly-optimistic child._

_“You’re very gentle, Kaneki,” she says in a low voice. His soft hair is feathering between her fingers. “But you’ll come to understand, someday, that certain things are unforgivable. I took very many people away from their families – from their hopes, their dreams, and even their loved ones. They lost it all because of me. I have no right to complain about their anger.”_

_He looks down at his feet, chastened, feeling heat flood his cheeks. “Then we’ll complain in your place.”_

_Her hand slips away. “I place myself in your good care.”_

_…_

“The white suits you,” she says the first time she sees him after the fact. She’d helped in his recovery, but by the time she’d gotten back to the courtyard of the Aogiri headquarters, he’d been long gone.

Kaneki shrugs a little, smiles a little, but both of the actions remind her of herself. She never knew it looked that sad. He’s changed, in more ways than one. She looks down at his hands, at the discoloration around his fingers, marking the division between the new flesh and the one he’s been wearing all his life – between old and fresh. His nails are black. It doesn’t look like polish. His face is grave, the bags under his eyes pronounced, and how he holds himself screams of hypertension. It’s horrible to recognize so much of herself in him. It’s not Kaneki who’s sitting across from her on the couch, looking from side to side restlessly like he’s preparing for an assailant to rush him from under her furniture.

“How bad are the dreams?” she says, and the line of his shoulders beneath his form-fitting black shirt grows ramrod-straight. His mouth barely moves when he speaks next.

“…Will they ever get better?”

Adequately answer-like for her. She looks up at the ceiling.

“It’ll come and go,” she says at last. She couldn’t bring herself to be dishonest with him.

“I’m on three hours of sleep,” he admits and then laughs a laugh that has a note of madness in it. “Every time I think I’m tired enough to nod off, I shut my eyes, and – ” He swallows the end of that sentence.

“You’ll be able to eventually,” Ren assures him, leaning forward. “One day, sleep is going to be more important than the nightmares.”

“No one really understands,” Kaneki murmurs. His gaze drifts, grows unfocused. “I have to… keep up. Stay strong.”

“Kaneki,” she starts, and then shakes her head. “No. Ken. The only person you need to be strong for is yourself.” She shuffles closer, and finally stands, makes her way over to the sofa where he’s sitting, and kneels in front of him. He flinches when her hands close over his, but she touches him softly, like she knows how it makes him feel. Her palms are cool and smooth. “Listen to me. I know it seems like all you have to do right now is survive. And that’s what you’ll do for a while. It’ll be alright. But – you can’t shut yourself off from others.”

He stares at the space between his hands guiltily.

“I won’t tell anyone you visited today,” Ren says, her fingers tightening around his. “But Touka misses you very much. Hinami is growing… quickly enough to scare me.” She smiles. “And I’m feeling the absence of my reading tutor acutely.”

Kaneki squirms uncomfortably, but she doesn’t move.

“I’m not saying this to edge you into doing anything. You’ll come back when you’re ready, but I won’t let you think you’re meaningless.” She pats the back of his hand. “You are _important._ ”

He doesn’t blush like he would have a few months ago, just sits there, like what she’s just finished saying is still filtering through his mind, being processed.

“…Can I—sleep here tonight?”

Ren rests a hand atop his head, the way she had months ago, when things were so different.

“Of course.”  

 

…

 

_She opens her eyes to the ceiling of HySy._

_“Ah. You’re awake.”_

_She doesn’t react to his voice. “So this is heaven? I don’t feel dead.”_

_Uta sighs. “That’s_ probably _because you aren’t. Even so—I don’t think Yomo would be here if this were heaven.”_

_There’s a thud from the other room, and Uta snickers. Ren looks at him questioningly. She moves her hands, experimenting. They aren’t broken anymore. Her feet are another story. Sometimes she feels like the regeneration factor steals experiences from her. What is life like while you’re healing slowly? She doesn’t know. Maybe she would be wiser for it, but that’ll never happen. Uta draws up a chair and sits at her bedside, smile gone._

_“The girl got away.”_

_Peace settles into the lines of Ren’s face. “That’s good.”_

_“And you nearly killed yourself.”_

_“I had to intervene,” she murmurs._

_“They outnumbered you ten to one.”_

_“I’m used to ugly odds.”_

_“You may not get so lucky in the future.”_

_Now she seems angry—the first time he’s seen anything like it on her. She sits up, despite the fact that her legs below the knee are a twisted mess beneath the bedsheets, and the absolute ease with which she does it fascinates him. Does she have no concept of pain at all?_

_“Why do you care?” she asks, fists bunching the blankets into tight wads at her sides._

_He crosses his arms. “Why shouldn’t I?”_

_That seems to take her off-guard, but doesn’t cow her completely. “I’m not family.”_

_“You’re ghoul. As far as I’m concerned, that’s good enough.”_

_She stares at him for a very long time, as though she can’t decide whether that’s the stupidest or nicest thing she’s ever heard, and then she sits back down, leaning her torso against the bed’s headboard._

_“You are an extremely strange man.”_

_He shrugs. “I get that a lot.”_

_Ren glances at her shirt. “These aren’t my clothes.”_

_“They’re Itori’s. Yours were a little, uh… shredded.”_

_Her expression pinches, grows sour. “I didn’t ask for your help.”_

_“You don’t have to. That’s why it’s called ‘help.’”_

_That seems to be the breaking point. She throws the bedsheets off, swings her still-healing legs over the side (he can hear the pop and crack of bones resetting), and makes to get up._

_“What are you doing?”_

_“Leaving. Get out of my way.”_

_“No.”_

_…_

He observes her out of the corner of his eye. She has a silly little smile on her face. He keeps sketching, takes a sip of his coffee, and then pops the question.

“What’re you thinking about?”

Ren swirls her own cup of coffee and considers her answer.

“Nothing.”

She looks out her apartment window, shuts her eyes when a cool breeze blows past the sill and stirs the hair on her shoulders. It’s nice, being able to feel these things, being able to sit here without worrying, knowing that she’s learning to be more at home in her own skin. Somehow, for once, she has a good feeling about the future. She laughs openly when Uta nearly loses his grip on his sketchbook after she bumps her legs to his under the table.

“Gotcha.”

He doesn’t look all that amused. “Very funny.”

Ren goes back to her drink, still amazed that she isn’t dreading tomorrow.

It’s a welcome change.


End file.
